Depression Stinks

Today I'm swimming in a sea of frustration. You name it, it seems to have happened.

Read through this post about my day, and let me show you how one anxious moment can spiral into the day from hell.

I woke late because I smacked my alarm one too many times.

Then, I had to call our daycare provider and let her know I was going to be late.

I realized that my keys were not on the hook where I remembered leaving them; then, I spent 15 minutes searching in vain ... after having to wake my husband TWICE to ask him if he'd moved them, he suddenly was alert enough to realize he had them in his pants pocket ...

So much wasted time ...

GREAT ...

Meanwhile, he transferred me 40 bucks for gas and driving in to the city for my 11 a.m. appointment—which I was already sure I was going to miss, thanks to the disastrous morning events—THEN, I couldn't find my one and only debit card anywhere.

All of that searching ... I had to AGAIN call the daycare lady, because I was a half hour later than the half hour later for which I had ALREADY called her before.

The ONE saving grace today was that it was the rarest day in a long time with my preschool daughter ... By some stroke of luck, she woke with a smile and even insisted on getting herself dressed without so much as a hiccup. On any other day, it's a constant struggle of wills that leaves me bloodless and ready to cry.

After I dropped her at care, I pulled over and did a quick check, and by then it was clear my debit card was really nowhere to be found. I texted my husband, rushed home to borrow his card, transferred the $40 back to his card, and fueled up my car, which was already indicating “low fuel.” By then, it was time for me to already be at my appointment ... and where was I?! About 30-40 minutes behind as traffic goes, and ready to bash my head into the steering wheel to rid myself of the horrifying feeling of failure and my hopeless self-esteem.

So what does any woman do in this situation to make herself feel better? That's right! Go get a Starbucks latte! I went for the Smoked Butterscotch, denying any knowledge of the calories contained within, on a quest to make myself feel even 10 percent better.

While waiting, I called the person whom I was to meet, and there was no option to leave a voicemail. I sent an email and felt so disgusted with myself. You see, I'm a Veteran, and I needed so badly to get to this appointment, where I was to begin my disability filing. I was further disgusted that I took time off for this and STILL could not seem to get my shit together enough to show up.

In the end, as it always does ... things worked out ... well, at least in their own way. I never heard back about rescheduling the appointment, nor got a reply back from the guy whom I was to see. I can't blame him.

I headed to work since the appointment opportunity was ruined, telling myself I could deal with this chaos better once I was there and had had time to de-stress and assess my situation. Well, that was AFTER I locked my car and house keys in the trunk of my car in the Metro garage ... Then, that night, upon returning to my car, I luckily met up with a Good Samaritan who took pity on me, climbed into the backseat of my car, and tried to help me access my keys from there. When that was clearly a fruitless task, he offered me a ride. It was at that point that I graciously accepted, and then stowed away my rolling bag complete with laptop, important paperwork and day planners in his trunk.

An hour later, after my kind daycare lady had driven myself and my daughter to the local McDonald's to wait for my husband to give us a ride home and deal with this car fiasco ... I got a Facebook message from the kind stranger, letting me know he had my laptop, and where I could pick it up.

Murphy's Law was at work, for sure. If something could go wrong, it would, and it did, and it had, at least for this day which interestingly enough was the day before Friday the 13th. Only mine came early.

Eventually, my husband found the spare key for the car, which unbeknownst to me, he'd hidden away for a rainy day emergency. We picked up my laptop ... no harm, no foul, and I was incredibly grateful to the Universe for not costing me my job. Days later, we finally found my debit card, in the same black hole where we'd first found my car keys, in one of my husband's pockets.

The next day I worked from home and sighed with the ease that comes from knowing how much worse things really can get, and hoped that that day wouldn't come again ... at least not for a very, very long time.